1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for connecting a floppy disk drive (FDD) to a computer having a card interface and, more particularly, to an interface device capable of connecting an FDD via an IC card slot to computer equipment having a card interface to which an IC card can be connected as an external storage device.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has heretofore been known that a data storage device, such as a floppy disk drive (FDD) or a magnetic tape drive, is incorporated as an external storage device in computer equipment, such as a personal computer, a word processor or a video game machine, for the purpose of saving various kinds of data files or exchanging data files with other equipment.
In recent years, the computer equipment, such as a personal computer, has been smaller and smaller, and the current trend in the field of portable computer equipment (for example, a small computer called "subnote" or a pen-input type personal computer) is to use an IC memory card rather than a large FDD.
However, since IC memory cards are considerably expensive, if such an IC memory card is to be used in an application in which storage of a large amount of data is needed, it is necessary to prepare an expensive IC memory card having a large memory capacity. In contrast, although floppy disks (FDs) are inexpensive and suited for applications in which storage of a large amount of data is needed, it is necessary to furnish the computer equipment, such as a personal computer, with a dedicated connector for external connection to an FDD. This makes it difficult to design a personal computer of reduced size.
IC memory cards in general have a memory capacity of several megabytes and can be employed similarly to FDs. However, since the price of an IC memory card is two hundred to three hundred times as high as that of an FD, it is strongly demanded to provide an arrangement which enables an FDD, instead of an IC memory card, to be connected to the IC memory card slot of a small computer having the aforementioned card interface.